Put Down Your Phone

A Wharton grad in the “humane tech” field hopes his app can help cure people of their smartphone addictions.

On the first day of his freshman year, Andrew Dunn W’12 bought a BlackBerry. Quickly, his shiny new device became an unhealthy obsession. He was on Facebook during every class. He stayed up late on dating apps. He would text and drive. “Smartphones and social media were getting in the way of every aspect of my life,” he says, “and really watering down my potential.”

It’s a familiar
story, but Dunn’s has a happy twist.

First, he set out
to help himself. A couple years out of Penn, while working in India, he
completely disconnected for a period of time—even from WiFi. His creativity
shot up, and everything suddenly became clearer. “I was like, ‘Whoa, I feel
alive,’” he says. “And I knew I needed to figure out a better relationship with
these devices—because they’re getting more out of me than I’m getting out of
them.”

Next he set out to
help others. After working in early-stage startups in fields ranging from
nightlife to microinsurance to international logistics, Dunn felt trapped by
the same kind of hyper-competitive culture he noticed at Wharton. He wanted to
do something different, to find something more closely aligned with his values.
So three years ago, he made the plunge into the digital wellness industry,
joining a company called Siempo. “I was like, ‘OK, this is my last stand. If
this doesn’t work out, I’m done. I’ll figure out something else to do with my
life.’”

It stuck. A
reinvigorated Dunn loved Siempo’s culture and mission, which he bills as “the
first smartphone interface designed to protect and promote human thriving.” He
started as operations manager and in 2017 became CEO. Today the free application—which
offers features that include simpler homescreen icons and batched notifications,
so you’re not lured to your phone every time someone likes your latest Facebook
post—has been downloaded more than 50,000 times.

“We’ve gotten
feedback from people thanking us for saving their life, for giving them their
family back,” Dunn says, recalling a mother from Kansas writing him to say how
many more hours she had to spend with her kids after the app made her phone less
tempting. “When I first read that, I teared up,” he says. “I think that’s the
coolest thing—the wellspring of benefits unlocked when someone converts six
hours a day of mindless consumption into all of this freedom and clarity and
presence with others.”

At the same time,
Dunn notes that “in terms of mass adoption, most of the world just isn’t
motivated to find a healthier smartphone experience,” which has presented some
challenges for Siempo and other companies in a still-emergent “humane tech”
space (dedicated to aligning technology to human needs rather than exploiting
human vulnerabilities for profit).

Siempo’s evolution
is proof of the struggle.

Originally, Dunn
notes, the company built their own pared-down phones, jettisoning many smartphone
features but offering a better camera and some cloud sync services. Then, it
moved from hardware to software, designing an interface to put into existing
Android handsets (which they had acquired) and then sell those as new devices.
The next move was creating software that Android users can download from the
Google Play store; that app launched last year to positive reviews. (Apple currently
doesn’t allow Siempo or other third-party apps designed to limit screen time on
its iOS platform.) More recently, Siempo became an “open-source project and a
public benefit corporation,” meaning it can include “public good” as part of
the company charter.

“Luckily, we have
such a strong mission that we’re able to benefit from volunteers and people
heavily reducing their rates for contract or employment,” says Dunn, adding
he’s mostly self-funding the company with his stock in previous startups. In
the future, he hopes Siempo can partner with organizations, universities, or
influencers. “One thing I’m proud of is we’ve been able to stay flexible and
resilient,” he says. “Siempo could have died several times.”

Dunn is pleased with
what’s been accomplished over the last few years, and is cautiously optimistic
that major companies like Apple and Google recently implemented screen time
features, so people can track and mitigate their usage. But he believes a lot
more still needs to be done so you can “use your tech, not the other way
around,” as Siempo’s motto states.